Federal and New Jersey officials allege that three uncovered reservoirs expose already-treated drinking water to renewed contamination risks… and that the system serving roughly 800,000 people still lacks a final compliance deadline.
Passaic Valley Water CommissionTL;DR
- The United States and New Jersey allege that the Passaic Valley Water Commission has not covered three finished-water reservoirs or treated their discharge as required by a federal drinking-water rule.
- The public system serves approximately 800,000 people across seven New Jersey communities and 22 wholesale customers in five counties.
- The rule required a cover, qualifying downstream treatment, or compliance with a state-approved schedule no later than April 1, 2009.
- The complaint says Hurricane Ida runoff contaminated the New Street Reservoir in 2021, leading to a boil-water advisory affecting 230,000 people for 43 days.
- It also says the open reservoirs complicated system-wide treatment intended to control lead, though the filing provides no household-level exposure or health-outcome data.
The case is about what happens after drinking water has been treated: the governments say PVWC stores it in open reservoirs where contamination can re-enter the system before the water reaches customers.
Transparency notice: This article relies on a civil complaint filed by the United States and New Jersey on August 12, 2026. The filing contains government allegations and descriptions of regulatory records; it is not a judicial finding. The supplied source includes no PVWC answer, settlement or court decision, so the commission’s complete response and liability remain unresolved.
The Facts
Raw surface water entering the Passaic Valley Water Commission system is treated at the Little Falls Water Treatment Plant. According to the government complaint, that treated water is then distributed to three open storage sites: the Great Notch, Levine and New Street reservoirs.
The location of those reservoirs is central to the case. All three sit after the treatment plant, making their contents “finished water”—water that has already undergone the required microbial treatment. The complaint says the reservoirs remain exposed to birds, animals, stormwater and other possible contamination sources, while no qualifying microbial treatment is available after the water leaves them for the distribution system.
The Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2006, addresses precisely this kind of post-treatment exposure. A system with an uncovered finished-water storage facility must cover it or treat the water discharged from it to specified pathogen-reduction standards. A system could instead operate under a state-approved schedule for reaching compliance.
The federal and state governments allege that PVWC satisfies none of those routes for the three reservoirs: they remain uncovered, their discharge doesn’t receive the required treatment, and no state-approved schedule provides a final compliance date for Great Notch. The complaint says that omission may also affect the schedules for the interrelated Levine and New Street projects.
How Treated Water Becomes Exposed Again
The filing describes a simple break in the protective chain. Treatment occurs before storage, but the storage facilities remain open. If contamination enters there, the complaint says there is no downstream microbial treatment before the water moves into the distribution system.
The complaint does not allege that pathogens are continuously present in all three reservoirs. Its claim is that the infrastructure leaves finished water vulnerable to recontamination and lacks the regulatory safeguard required for that vulnerability.
Who Had to Live With the Consequences
PVWC is a public water system jointly owned by Paterson, Passaic and Clifton. The complaint says it serves approximately 800,000 people in Paterson, Clifton, Passaic, Prospect Park, Lodi, North Arlington and part of Woodland Park. It also supplies 22 wholesale customers across Passaic, Bergen, Essex, Hudson and Morris counties.
The filing’s clearest account of a direct public consequence occurred on September 1, 2021. It alleges that Hurricane Ida flooding carried stormwater runoff into the New Street Reservoir. A boil-water advisory followed in parts of four cities, affecting 230,000 people for 43 days.
For 230,000 people, the consequence identified in the complaint wasn’t an abstract infrastructure risk. It was a boil-water advisory that remained in place for 43 days.
A boil-water advisory directs customers to boil tap water before consuming it. The complaint does not identify illnesses arising from the Ida incident, provide pathogen test results or describe how the advisory affected individual households. Those outcomes cannot be established from this source.
The separate lead-control constraint
The governments also allege that the open reservoirs interfered with another part of water management. According to the complaint, PVWC acknowledged that their continued operation affected its ability to apply system-wide treatment to control lead levels. The system exceeded the lead action level on several occasions, including in 2016, the filing says.
The alleged conflict was operational: a commonly used corrosion inhibitor could help control lead, but the complaint says it would also increase the risk of microbial growth and organic loading in the open reservoirs. The filing does not provide sampling data, identify affected households or establish individual lead exposure or health effects. What it documents is a treatment constraint attributed to the uncovered infrastructure.
A Compliance Problem Documented Over Time
The complaint describes years of administrative steps without a final date for resolving the Great Notch reservoir. Those records establish that the compliance problem was formally recognized. They do not, by themselves, establish why each project remained incomplete or prove intent.
EPA promulgated the Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule. It became effective on March 6, 2006.
PVWC entered an administrative consent order with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection after it was unable to meet the rule’s April 1 deadline. The order required a phased feasibility process but, according to the complaint, did not set a final Great Notch compliance date.
PVWC entered a memorandum of understanding to evaluate a Great Notch solution and bring the reservoir into compliance.
New Jersey’s environmental enforcement director asked EPA to join the state in enforcement over the alleged continuing noncompliance.
Hurricane Ida flooding allegedly contaminated New Street with stormwater runoff, followed by the 43-day boil-water advisory.
The United States and New Jersey filed their civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
What the Documentary Record Says
Legal receipts
“Systems must cover any uncovered finished water storage facility.” 40 C.F.R. § 141.714(c), as quoted in the complaint
“A boil water advisory was issued in parts of four cities and affected 230,000 people for forty-three days.” United States and New Jersey v. Passaic Valley Water Commission, Complaint ¶ 23
“There is no final end date to achieve compliance” for the Great Notch Reservoir under a state-approved schedule. Complaint ¶ 30; allegation by the United States and New Jersey
These passages carry different evidentiary weight. The first quotes the governing regulation. The other two state the governments’ factual allegations. A complaint begins a case; it does not prove the allegations merely by filing them.
The Broader Infrastructure Problem
The alleged failure isn’t limited to whether a roof sits over a reservoir. The complaint connects open storage to two distinct system functions: protecting treated water from renewed microbial contamination and managing treatment intended to control lead. The same infrastructure condition allegedly complicated both.
That gives the dispute significance beyond a single storm. Drinking-water treatment is a sequence, and post-treatment storage is part of that sequence. The government’s case rests on the claim that protection at the plant can be undermined when finished water is later stored in the open without a required safeguard downstream.
The source does not establish ongoing widespread contamination, a continuing boil-water advisory or documented health injuries across the service area. Its broader institutional consequence is narrower: a public system serving roughly 800,000 people allegedly remained outside a national finished-water storage requirement without a final compliance date for a central reservoir.
What the Governments Want—and What the Court Hasn’t Decided
The United States brought the case at EPA’s request, while New Jersey acted at the request of the state Department of Environmental Protection. They accuse PVWC of continuing violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act and its finished-water storage rule.
The requested injunction would require PVWC to cover the three reservoirs or install treatment for water discharged from them. The complaint specifically seeks completion of the Levine project and the commencement and completion of work at New Street and Great Notch. It also asks for public notifications and interim public-health protections while permanent work remains unfinished.
The governments seek civil penalties up to the applicable statutory maximum for each day of violation, but the filing states no requested total and supplies no calculation from which one can be determined.
No attached decision finds that PVWC violated the law, caused a particular illness or owes a penalty. The court has not resolved whether the governments’ allegations are correct, what schedule would be imposed or whether the case will end through judgment, settlement or another process.
The source also contains no complete PVWC response. It attributes to the commission an acknowledgment concerning the effect of uncovered reservoirs on lead-control treatment, but it does not include PVWC’s answer to the lawsuit, defenses, construction explanation or current project account.
What a Legitimate Fix Looks Like
Editorial analysisThe filing identifies the basic remedy because the regulation does: cover each finished-water reservoir or provide approved treatment to its discharge. The unresolved problem is execution.
- Enforceable final dates: Each reservoir needs a schedule that identifies when construction or treatment will be completed, rather than another preliminary study without an end date.
- Interim safeguards: Until permanent controls are operating, public notifications and temporary health-protection measures should address the period of continuing exposure identified by the complaint.
- An integrated treatment plan: Any remedy should account for the alleged conflict between microbial conditions in open reservoirs and system-wide corrosion control. The filing does not contain enough engineering detail to prescribe that plan.
- Verifiable completion: Compliance should turn on functioning covers or approved treatment—not only agreements, evaluations or construction promises.
What to Watch
- Passaic Valley Water Commission: its formal answer, factual defenses and current construction status for all three reservoirs.
- EPA and NJDEP: any proposed enforceable schedule, interim protection requirements or settlement terms.
- The federal court: whether it reaches the merits, approves a settlement or orders injunctive relief and penalties.
- Project milestones: whether Great Notch receives a final compliance date and whether the Levine and New Street projects advance to completed, operating safeguards.
The central unresolved question is concrete: when will each reservoir have a functioning cover or approved downstream treatment? The complaint asks a court to supply the enforcement pressure that earlier administrative steps allegedly did not.
The source document for this investigation is attached below.
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